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International Workshop on Laboratory Animal Science

On Monday October 23rd 2017, Department of Animal Science of the School of Agriculture and the Department of Animal Experimentation of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) held an opening ceremony to fuel a two week International Training course in Laboratory Animal Science. The course is aimed at building the capacity and knowledge of participants in the field of Laboratory Animal Science. This will help Laboratory Animal Scientists have additional knowledge on responsible care, use & handling of animals, obtain some practical skills in administration of substances, as well as various techniques. Dr. Thomas Nortey, Chief Coordinator of the workshop revealed this during his welcome address. He also thanked his coordinating team members; Dr. Samuel Adjei and Dr. Ayizanga for the effort in making this training course a reality.

Prof. Kwabena Bosompem Director, (NMIMR) expressed his immense joy and appreciation of the training course. He said that the Institute has since the 1990s been a major producer of anti-snake serum for the Ghana Health Service. Prof Bosompem indicated that the training will bring an opportunity in developing proper animal care and control of the frequent outflow of animal diseases to man and from Man to animals. In addition, the director of NMIMR encouraged the need to create a common system of mass control of infections within Ghana.

Director of the Office of Research, Innovation and Development (ORID) also commended the team for this training opportunity. He said that the various research conducted by NMIMR has always been of high interest to ORID. He said “we lack phase 1 trials basically due to lack of infrastructure which we are hopeful to work on in the future.”

The Chairman of the research ethics committee of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences (CBAS) of the University of Ghana, stated that research continues to play major roles in human lives and hence the need to pay particular attention to it. He said that the ethics committee for CBAS was set up and inaugurated on Wednesday 28th January 2015, following the approval of the ORID management board to set up ethics committee for the various qualities within the University of Ghana. According to him the committee was set up in prior mandate of the University’s policy on the use of humans and non-humans for research. It monitors the ethical nature of research in teaching undertaken by faculty of CBAS in respect of animals used for teaching and experimentation.

The leader of the team of experts from University of Utretcht, Natherlands, Prof. Dr. Vera Bauman, said they were excited to be in Ghana to offer this training an urged the course participants to take advantage of this opportunity to advance the course of appropriate use of animals in research.